STATESBORO, GA. (WJCL) A couple of months ago, Statesboro announced its bringing a minor league soccer team to town.

Now that team has an identity.

Advertisement

It's official, Statesboro's new Premier Development League minor league soccer team will be known as the South Georgia Tormenta FC.

Tormenta, was chosen from almost 200 names. It's Spanish for storm, representing the tormenting the club will bring to its opponents and the intense force of nature its players seek to display.

"The centerpiece of that logo is the Ibis which is a bird that is everywhere around here," said Darin Van Tassel, Tormenta FC Team President. 'But the part I really like is the Ibis is the first animal that comes back after the storm is over, but is the last to retreat when a storm begins."

The addition of minor league soccer to Statesboro will be a big boon economically, especially during the summer which is usually slow time of year.

"Our city is like any college town when the students are gone which they typically are in the summer, a great deal of them, all of our businesses feel that," said Statesboro Mayor Jan Moore. "We're hoping that this will change that atmosphere and that we have more of a year round sports feel in our city and a college feel then we would have normally have had."

"Our studies suggest it's somewhere between a $5 to 10 million impact over the summer," added Van Tassell. "That's for an entire community."

Tormenta FC will be playing their homes games at Georgia Southern at their soccer field. The season will begin next May.

The team uses the name South Georgia instead of Statesboro because they plan to really recruit fans from Savannah and surrounding areas and draw from its soccer enthusiasts.